An interview with Andres Serrano on his latest work produced by More Art, Residents of New York, in which he exhibited in the streets and the subway his portraits of homeless people

Andres Serrano’s artworks are well-known outside the art world, for their controversial and provocative nature. The most infamous, Piss Christ, is a 1988 photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine.

His latest work (the first public art project though, produced by More Art), Residents of New York, is a series of large-format portraits of New York City homeless people, taken in the streets where they live – their “home”. The pictures are even more relevant because they have been wwwd in the very streets and subway stations of New York – around Washington Square, on phone booths throughout the city, and inside the West 4th Street subway station.

In my opinion, the power of this artwork is due to the fact that it vehicles its concept with a thorough care for the photographic gesture, emphasizing in a stunning way the message conveyed by the images. Serrano could have used an “easier” camera for this kind of work but, on the contrary, given his usual attention to light and composition, he decided to use the large format, that add monumentality and solemnity to the images.

Sometimes the photographic act renews reality itself by transforming its meaning, and this happens in Serrano’s work, where the mere gesture of taking a picture of a homeless man makes him worthy to be photographed, stating his existence and dignity. Serrano could have stopped here, but he decided to take this concept to a further, deeper level by installing the images in the streets, where his subjects actually live.

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Serrano forces us to look at a blown up version of what we usually prefer to ignore in our everyday life: and having seen his pictures to avoid the look of the people we would like to overlook suddenly is, well, more difficult. What does this trigger in us? If the context where the images are exhibited influences the way in which we interpret them (an ID picture has a different meaning glued to a passport or framed on a museum’s wall), what does it happen when Serrano’s poignant images occupy the spaces usually covered by ads?

By reclaiming the streets and the space that is intended for advertising, Serrano’s Residents of New York overthrows our expectations, managing to produce a clever condemnation of both the consumeristic logic and to our self-induced indifferent attitude towards the homeless.

I met and interviewed Andres Serrano for Vogue Italia some time ago, you can check the video here. Today I asked him a couple of questions about his work Residents of New York:

What I really like about “Residents of New York” is that there is a strong concept but also a care for the photographic gesture: the quality of the pictures is very high. Lately I’m starting to have problems with works of art that are just concepts, ideas, without this care for the craft beyond it. What is your point of view on this matter?First of all, I shoot film. I like the quality of film and to create images devoid of manipulation. It feels closer to the truth. I also like pictures that not only make sense but pack a punch. We see so many images that are either fake or gimmicky so it’s nice to see something pretty straightforward. You come to the point where you think about what you want to leave out of the picture rather than put in. For a mature artist, less is more. You want to be a kind of knock-out artist where you deliver concept, craft and content all in one blow.

How did you come up with this idea?In October of last year it occurred to me I was seeing more homeless people than ever in New York City. I decided to walk the streets buying up as many of the signs the homeless use to ask for money as I could. I spent many hours and weeks buying signs and eventually collected over two hundred signs that I made into a video called Sign of The Times. I had been invited by More Art, a public arts organization, to do a public installation so it made sense to continue the theme of homelessness in New York. I went out with an assistant in January and took 4×5 portraits of the people I encountered on the streets. My intent was to capture some of the faces you often avoid looking at and putting them up at the West 4th St. subway station and on phone booths in several locations around the city.

How was the reaction of the people you photographed? How did you approach them? And the reaction of the New Yorkers?I approached everyone in much the same way explaining that I was an artist doing a project on the homeless. I paid my models, as I normally do with anyone I photograph. I know they were happy to get paid but I also think many were happy to be asked to be a part of something since most people normally ignore them.

What would you like people looking at this work feel?First of all, I want them to look. It’s hard to get people to look at posters in the subway. They’re conditioned to ignoring them because they know advertisers are trying to sell them something. Also, people are busy looking at their iPhones and rushing off to their trains so if I could get some people to look at the pictures that’s a great accomplishment. If I could get them to feel something it’s even better. The important thing for me is to give a face to the people you see on the streets but don’t really look at and to acknowledge and pay homage to them. That’s why, rather than to refer to them as homeless I call them “Residents of New York” because they live here, too.

You used a large format camera, can you tell me if there’s a particular reason for this choice?Yes, because I had never worked with a large format camera before and I wanted for them to be like studio portraits except shot on the street with available light. The first pictures I took were in black and white. That was intentional. I wanted to evoke the WPA era when the government hired photographers and artists to document the Depression and try to give America a ray of hope. Some of the greatest images of that period show Americans who are down and out but not broken. It’s one of the greatest symbols of American resilience and shows how art can heal and inspire a Nation.